You're One in a Million

Humans tend to forget that we're one in a million—one in a million species on the planet, that is. A six-year-old international scientific effort to catalog every known living organism, has already passed the 1 million mark. The 3,000 scientists involved hope to complete their listings by 2011, with an anticipated 1.75 million species described.

Even after two centuries of work by biologists, and vigorous biodiversity conservation efforts, there is currently no "comprehensive catalog" of all known species on Earth, according to Thomas M. Orrell, a biologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Considering that we're in the middle of a mass-extinction crisis, let's hope this comes to pass before the scientists have almost zilch to catalog. (Fossil species from the past are not included in the project.) :: USA Today